Monday, October 27, 2008

So the Zombie Plague is now over. It was an interesting experience, both on the servers and watching the reaction to it. First off, you have to admire an event where the healers can grief people with Cleanse or Cure Disease.

I think the people who are expecting their daily routine to be untouched are demanding too much. Do you really expect auctioneers, battlemasters, etc. to continue business as usual in the face of an invasion? I remember the first time the Naxx event was done, many people complained because it did not have an impact on the world.

However, I wonder how much of the outcry was because the zombies were other players? We roll on PvE servers specifically to get away from being affected by other players. If the zombie plague had been entirely NPC-driven, would people have complained as loudly?

It's sort of similar to Sons of Arugal or Mor'Ladim. They definitely affect your questing routine. But it's just part of the game, and not another player deliberately making life difficult for you. I wonder if that has an impact on the psychology of the event. Would PvE players be more understanding of the disruption in their routine if it wasn't driven by other players?

But then again, if the event was pure-NPC, we wouldn't have been able to turn into zombies, which was pretty cool. Maybe if player zombies couldn't attack unflagged people, that would have gone over better.

Other than that, the event seemed well done. About the only thing I would change is to remove repair costs if you are transformed into a zombie.

Maybe if player zombies couldn't attack unflagged people, that would have gone over better.

I think you hit the nail on the head with this. At least for me personally, it was baffling the first time a player zombie attacked my unflagged character (on a PVE realm). There were also several times when I couldn't attack player controlled zombies, and I'm not sure why that was (a faction thing maybe?). It was also strange that the disease could be cleansed sometimes, but not always (are you supposed to spam cleanse? which NPCs can be cleansed?), and bubbling instantly caused you to turn into a zombie. It's disconcerting at least when many of the conventions you've gotten used to over several years suddenly go out the window.

I have two issues with the event. One is that all zombies should have been instantly flagged and targetable. The other is that at times I tried to cure other players and wasn't able to cast. Not sure if that was group limitations or what. Also players should have been able to clense npcs as well.

For me personally, the point at which the event went from interesting to unpleasant was the point when people started camping the portal zone-in locations in major cities, so that you would be a zombie (with a repair bill and a corpse run in your future) before you even finished loading in. That's a line that shouldn't be crossed when you're unflagged.

I had a good time with it. A guildie and myself had a nice little army going through Stormwind. You have to have with stuff like this while it lasts. It was a little annoying that I couldn't really do any of my daily auctions, but hey it was only a temporary inconvience.

This was the first ever forced content. It was also almost entirely player-driven. That's a big change from everything else in the game which has always been scripted and 100% optional.

Zombies made it hard to go about one's normal tasks. Personally I had my bank alt blown up 3 times while trying to scan the AH. Then it struck me: I'm in the middle of a zombie invasion which is tearing this city apart, and my biggest priority is getting the market price of adamantite?

This was probably the best RP event ever because it did not allow people to just carry on with the same old grind and banking. It's really hard to worry about non-RP activities when your characters are being eaten.

Well said Klepsakovic. I enjoyed it while it lasted, it was a nice change from the routine. And really, for all the people who were put out by this event, it lasted a whole 7 days? Surely that's not too long out of their routine. The biggest issue was low level toons being camped by 70's, blizzard should have put in better safeguards against that.

I remember coming back to SW to hand in the new kara boss quest only to find the handin dead, and zombies *everywhere*. I thought "oh yeah baby" and went to work on them with my paladin until the quest handin reappeared.

I think the people who are expecting their daily routine to be untouched are demanding too much. Do you really expect auctioneers, battlemasters, etc. to continue business as usual in the face of an invasion? I remember the first time the Naxx event was done, many people complained because it did not have an impact on the world.

I don't find this to be a particularly compelling argument, because I can just as easily respond "Do you really expect cities and towns not to safeguard their most vital areas in the event of such a crisis? Why weren't additional guards placed around city entrances, portaling-in locations, bankers, auctioneers, and military figures (such as battle masters)?"

Furthermore, if we want to argue realism, there are a whole bunch of questions that can be raised to show how unrealistic the event was. Such as "Why was fighting player-controlled zombies disabled in sanctuary zones such as Shattrath City?" or "Why did guards in neutral cities attack us for attacking the zombie players that were wreaking havoc on their town?" How about "Why did NPCs in Shattrath and possibly some other zones simply stand around in zombie retch and watch their friends and colleagues get zombified rather than lend a hand? (I'm looking at you, Shattered Sun NPCs!)"

I could much more readily accept the argument about inconveniencing players slightly for the sake of realism if that same realism extended to NPC response.

That being said, I had a blast with the zombie invasion. And what's more, I survived without once being zombified! \o/

Funny that you mention Mor'Ladim as someone we live with due to him being an NPC - I went back to kill him just for revenge several times as a lvl 40ish paladin, and always helped people with that quest when someone asked in guild chat ;)

I play on a pve server, have never set foot in an arena, and rarely participate in pvp at all (lifetime 13 honorable kills, lol). For me, the zombie thing was a terrific way to do some pvp in a non-competitive environment, where, if you screw it up, you're not getting yelled at or letting your team down.

I do think they perhaps paced this a little too quickly, though I expect that there's something yet to come....

The hordes of people crying that they couldn't get to the AH or a vendor really need to get out of mom's basement more often. This is a GAME, and the event was a great break from the routine. After all, the respawns are fast enough that you really didn't have to wait long to get stuff done.

It was an INVASION, for crying out loud...

The inability to attack player zombies in shatt was a problem, but that's probably due to the sanctuary mechanics. And the camping of spawn points was bad. But it was fun to be flying into a flightpoint, see a horde of zombies, and say "oh sh....."

I'm sure any sociology student had a field day watching the griefers and the whiners and all that. The most perplexing were the players that were griefing other players, but had a tantrum when you cleansed them... how two-faced...

My favorite moment from the whole thing was when I was leveling my tailoring. I had to stop in Honor Hold, and I turned the corner into the inn to find about twenty zombies milling around downstairs. My priest put up a decent fight, but I stood no chance in the end.

I wondered why the cities didn't put up some sort of banking, flight path, or AH 'in exile,' so to speak. As in, take the facilities and move them to the back of the cathedral in SW or something.

This event was not an RP event. I wish people would stop saying that - it was lore tie-in at best.

If it was really an RPing event, people would not have been deliberately trying to become zombies. All our efforts would have been thrown into finding a cure or fighting zombies, not in "griefing" other players.

I also think people underestimate the impact this event would have had on lowbies and newbies (lowbies being low level characters, and newbies being new commers to the game). It got to the point where they couldn't do anything except stand around and watch (and be one shotted by a level 70 zombie, and if they did manage to get infected one shotted by a level 70 player/level 50+ guard), or run and hide because all their quest NPCs were dead or zombified - they couldn't really participate because of their level. Someone at Blizz didn't really think this event through to its logical conclusion.

Low level characters should have been protected from this event, or preferably given a viable way to participate. I completely understand the frustrations of some players towards this event.